These books of Fiona Macleod’s are, for the most part, shadowy, elusive dream-poems in prose, wrought into a form of beauty from fragments of old Gaelic tales heard in the Western isles (where the Author lived for years) from fishermen and crofters. They are full of the magic of words subtly woven, of vague mystery, and of nature—wind and sea and sky. He strives to infuse into his stories the sadder and more mystic aspects of the Gaelic spirit, as he conceives it. “I have not striven to depict the blither Irish Celt.” But many of his stories are simply Irish legends, _e.g._, _The Harping of Cravetheen_. The Author thus describes his work: “In certain sections are tales of the old Gaelic and Celtic Scandinavian life and mythology; in others there is a blending of paganism and Christianity; in others again are tales of the dreaming imagination having their base in old mythology, or in a kindred mythopæic source.... Many of these tales are of the grey wandering wave of the West, and through each goes the wind of the Gaelic spirit which turns to the dim enchantment of dreams.” On the other hand, some of these stories deal with life in modern Gaelic Scotland, _e.g._, _The Mountain Lovers_, which, however poetically told, is after all a tale of seduction. _The Winged Destiny_, amid much matter of a different nature, contains several tales of Gaelic inspiration. =MACLEOD and THOMSON.= ⸺ SONGS AND TALES OF ST. COLUMBA AND HIS AGE. By Fiona Macleod and J. Arthur Thomson. Third edition. Large paper 4to. (EDINB.: _Patrick Geddes_). 6_d._ nett. =M’MAHON, Ella.= Dau. of late Rev. J. H. MacMahon, Chaplain to the Lord-Lieutenant. Ed.: home. Has written much for various magazines and periodicals, and particularly on historical and archæological subjects. Has publ. about seventeen novels. Now resides in Chelsea.—(WHO’S WHO). ⸺ FANCY O’BRIEN. (_Chapman & Hall_). 6_s._ 1909. A tragedy of city life centering in the betrayal and desertion of Bridgie Doyle by Fancy O’Brien. Full of human interest, careful and skilful study of character and motive. Catholic in sympathy. “In its minor details the book is true to life, photographic in its realism.” The story is of high dramatic and literary excellence. In the account of the Easter Monday excursion to Bray “the story of Bridgie’s undoing is told with a rare combination of poetry, force, and restraint.”—(N.I.R., Aug., 1909). ⸺ THE JOB. Pp. 383. (_Nisbet_). 6_s._ 1914.